Department News 2005-06

Department News

Summer 2005 - Spring 2006

Stephanie Wortel '09, astronomy-physics major, receives the 1819 Award. This is the highest award given to a student. Congratulations Steph!
Physics and Astronomy awards:
-- Alumni Award: Jarrett Moyer '06
-- Founders Award: Krissy Williams '06
-- Kingsbury Prize: Nikolay Zehlev '09, Scott Douglas '09, Laura Coyle '09.
Rocket Day 2006: April 21, 2006

Sigma Pi Sigma Honor Society 2nd Annual Induction Dinner and Ceremony was held on April 5, 2006. Inductees (on campus) are (see photo below): (row 1) Ushish Ray, Alison Andrews, Lea Vacca; (row 2) Dobromir Kamburov, Andrew Olson, Ben Cerio, Andrew Potter, Joshua Dempster, Mehul Malik; inductees (off campus/not present): Adam Dioguardi, Devin Edwards, Bryce Gadway, Alyssa Kaercher, Kartik Misra, Lauren MacMillan, Brendan Mullan, Jessica Poetzsch, Ben Reschovsky. Congratulations to all!

Students participated in Rochester Symposium of Physics Students held at Houghton College on April 1, 2006: Krystle Williams '06, Michael Nitzberg '08, Mehul Malik '06, and Nikhil Fernandes '08. Job well done!
Construction of our future home, the Ho Science Center has begun! For information of designs, and progress via a live webcam go to http://www.colgate.edu/hosciencecenter.
Colgate hosted a Symposium on Albert Einstein, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the miraculous year, the year when he published five papers on landmark physical theories: the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion and relativity. This symposium was sponsored by the New York State Section of the American Physical Society. It was held on October 14-15. It was a success!
This past summer 2005, Colgate student Krystle Williams '06 we elected to the SPS (Society of Physics Students) National Council. She is serving as the Associate Zone Councilor for Zone 2. (For more information, see http://www.spsnational.org/info/nationalcouncil.htm). At the council meeting on September 24, 2005, Krissy was also elected to serve on the Executive Committee as the SPS Associate Councilor Representative. Way to go, Krissy!

Colgate student, Christina Viviano '06 spends her summer doing research at the new seismic station on top of Snowmass Ski Area, near Aspen, Colorado. For more information, read the articles by the University of Colorado at Boulder News Center and The Aspen Times.

Colgate hosted a week long (7/11-7/15) physics workshop for high school teachers. Twenty eight high school teachers from rural school in the states of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. The workshop was run by the Physics Resource Teacher Agents (PTRA) of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and funded by the National Science Foundation. The topic of the workshop was Momentum and Energy. Next year we will host a similar workshop. In the photo on the left teachers try out one of their hands-on activities: a stomp rocket that they built. Hey, its rocket science! Below on the right we have a photo of the entire group, including instructors Steve Henning and Nancy Moreau (first row on the left).